Reaction: Ad Implications For Facebook's Graph Search

It's been less than 24 hours since Facebook announced its foray into search - known as Graph Search.

Though Facebook has initially focused on positioning the product for the consumer, AdExchanger reached out to a selection of executives in the ad ecosystem and asked their thoughts on the implications for advertisers.

"Facebook’s announcement was nothing shocking, but I’m sure someone is claiming to have used 'big data' to make the prediction. Still, they did introduce a new user feature -and one, that while not fully baked, will certainly have an impact down the road. As they termed it, they released a 'people-powered' search engine.

But what does this mean for marketers? For starters, you need to look closely at your current social SEO strategy. Where social SEO in the past impacted the SERP off FB, you must now have a solid approach for Graph SEO.

In terms of implications for advertising, here are some immediate thoughts:

If usage is strong, there will be more demand for sponsored search results.

"Through Graph Search, Facebook is enabling user behavior that happens today, offline or via email, around planning trips and activities (i.e. what are top restaurants in New York) as well as buying products (which tablet should I buy?). This provides a radical opportunity for marketers to create competitive advantage.

For targeting on Facebook, long term this will most clearly lead to the use of intent data, which we primarily gather through paid search today. For measurement, marketers can leverage 2012 Facebook advertising advancements such as post-view tracking, their offline data partnerships and api enhancements to track likes and shares at the individual level, ensuring those individuals are the right audience driving true ROI.

Graph Search will succeed as Facebook does not have the same challenge as competitors like Google’s Zagat or Consumer Reports. If Zagat had inaccurate and unreliable recommendations, consumers would have stopped buying guides long ago. If I get a recommendation through Facebook, I will blame my friend, stop trusting them but keeping using Facebook."

"Graph search by FB is huge for (at least) two reasons: intent and utility.

The first is the most obvious: now Facebook is capturing user intent and they are entering the "search" game. Users can and will start by looking for people, pictures, photos and places. But why stop there? Why not use it for movies and TV shows? Or a product I'm about to purchase? Ads will come into place both directly and indirectly. Since Facebook can now harness intent (given their unique/proprietary data), advertisers will fall over themselves to directly place a "sponsored result" (with social context) for a given query. Indirectly, likes and other 'social' actions (e.g., installs) that advertisers now pay for become significantly more valuable. If you're trying to figure out what Insurance company most of your friends use, whoever has the most "likes" will be important to your search. And this doesn't even address the huge mobile discovery opportunity.

The second is a bit less clear but with huge upside. We believe that Graph Search will be one of the first time's Facebook is showing users the inherent UTILITY present in the Open Graph. Before Graph Search, users didn't have access to such great data with a few keystrokes. Now they do. And they will start to realize how useful it really is. What does this mean? Facebook usage will go up, for sure. But users are likely to participate more in the Open Graph than they did in the past because now they finally "get it." This means more app installs, off-Facebook likes and beyond. This will teach FB more about users and grow the graph significantly ultimately leading to better/more relevant ads across the board."

"[First,] from a user's perspective, dependent upon the richness of one's network and the strength of one's connections, Graph search could prove to have tremendous utility, especially for power users. The big unknown is how will brand pages and brand presences ultimately be impacted? Today, many brands share content hosted on third party sites -- their .com, youtube, flickr, etc. That content will not appear in Graph search results...for now. As a result, brands may have to re-consider their digital asset/content management strategy.

While Graph search will likely provide impetus for brands to further invest in their fan base, to improve the likelihood of connections, thereby appearance in search results, the launch will not offer any new ad products particularly on the results page. We expect this product to be monetized somewhere down the road and look forward to further developments."

1 Comment

Using LikeGraph data as a proxy for user intent isn't as clear cut as some would have you believe.

The act of liking a company/product/status/etc. is incredibly time-based. There are things I liked back in 2007, when I was single, that have little to do with who I am today, married with children in 2013.

Additionally, the intent behind my likes is incredibly asymmetrical. I might like two bands on Facebook - one could be my all time favoriate band, and one might have been running a contest that forced me to like their page for an entry. They shouldn't be counted as equals.

Page engagement might be a way to filter down to "true" likes, but there are tons of pages for things that I truly love that I "liked" and then never visited again because their pages offered me little to no value.

I have no doubt Facebook will figure out how to refine these results, but for advertisers that are hyperventilating at the thought of using this data to locate customers and target ads... time for a deep breath.